This Is Halloween
by BrocktreeJustLeft
Summary: A Nolanverse and slightly AU look at one Halloween in Gotham City.


**This is my first Batman story.  
**

**I do not own anything or anyone but secondary characters such as Jenny and other schoolmates and Alyson. Everything else is property of DC comics. **

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Halloween in Gotham City was generally expected to involve some form of theatrical law-breaking, what with Batman running around at night nowadays.

Of course, most social places, such as parks, schools and businesses expect a different group from the list to be attacked by some rogue and thus, give said rogues another option.

Richard Grayson contemplated this as he ran through one of the large city's parks in an attempt to break in the pair of black skinny jeans that he had bought for his Halloween costume this year, which was Zorro.

He was also thinking about what he would be doing other than standing idly in the sidelines of his highschool's annual party. It did _not_ include any trouble-making. On the contrary, Rich was planning on slipping out of the school so that he could _undo_ any trouble that would inevitably be made, or at least try.

**V**

While the skinny-jean wearing sixteen-year-old made a spectacle of himself in the sun-bathed park on one side of Gotham, a young receptionist thought about life, upcoming holidays, and whether she would run into any more costume wearing mad-men on the other.

Alyson Chair was her name, she had brown hair, the full height of about five and a half feet and was in her mid twenties.

It was two days before the Thirty-First of October, which normally would have meant little more than 'Make sure you have at least two bags of fun sized candies.' and 'Remember to try on your costume _before_ Four PM.', but this year her co-workers had talked her into going to the 'Sure-to-get-drunk-and-do-something-regrettable' party that her boss threw every year. She was going to dress up as Audrey Hepburn's character in _Breakfast At Tiffany's_, and planned on not consuming very much alcohol so as to prevent anything regrettable from surely happening.

Alyson was an everyday person that experienced everyday events, which in Gotham meant fearing for your life or sanity some of the time. She was at a mid-mark in her mind over what to expect from the party, _boring_ drunk people in lingerie that claimed it was their, very clever apparently, 'costume', or _exciting_ villains dressed up as clowns threatening her boss with a knife. In all honesty she hoped for the latter. Not that she wanted her boss to have a permanent smile carved onto his face, but it would be a nice, _Halloween_, contrast from the normality of her life. She had experienced, albeit from the sidelines, what it was like to have a party raided, and she had found that she enjoyed it. Not that she was planning on donning a Glasgow smile and frightening makeup, _'But let's face it,'_ she reasoned with herself, _'who doesn't want something new?'_

**V**

Richard had come to a conclusion the day of Halloween, during a science experiment

involving gasses, it was more than possible that the Scarecrow would attack his school, it _was_ Gotham's public highschool after all, and what kind of a man would put on a mask and spray toxins at people just to see them _fear _him? Rich was counting on the idea that it would be a man that had experienced some form of trauma during childhood and thus, assumed that society was rotten or something like that, and would choose to attack 'innocent' teenagers because he knew that they deserved it.

So as it were, Rich felt pretty confident about tonight, and was apparently giving off some weird aura, a classmate of his, Ron Mall, commented on this.

"So are you nervous about a _girl_ or are you just up to something that you shouldn't be?" Richard jumped, he mentally kicked himself for not paying attention, _'And then he did the same thing with the Joker, and was never seen again.'_ he thought.

"Dick!"

For half a second Rich thought that Ron had resorted to name calling, then he remembered that most boys with his name went by 'Dick', and stuffed the displeasure to the back of his mind, Ron and Richard had a civil relationship -one would not talk to the other outside of casual remarks and the like, and the other would not cause some form of trouble for one- it had worked thus far, the boys had only landed in detention once, way back in elementary school, over a stupid argument over which had the cooler dad. Nowadays Ron was actually scared of bringing the subject up. Richard's friend, an opinionated girl named Jenny, had made sure to guilt Ron out of any possible thoughts of resurfacing the matter.

Rich forgot what reason it was that Ron and he were speaking, and started to walk away, but stopped himself when he remembered it, "Oh sorry, um, I'm just... Excited." he said, Ron did not push the matter, the teenager looked slightly dazed. Richard, not having anything else to say, hastened into the gym.

He was greeted by the aforementioned Jenny, who was smiling, oddly, and dressed up as Samus Aran, Space Bounty Hunter.

"Hi," she said, Rich noticed the swamp monster to her right, who waved.

They made small talk as the party began and the evening wore on, Richard focusing all his attention on the door every time someone opened it.

"Gee, Rich, is your date late or something?" Mr. Swamp Monster asked.

"Sure." Richard answered distractedly as a slightly too tall person that was dressed up as the scarecrow from The Wizard Of Oz. The person (who was either a man or a terribly miss-proportioned and mistakenly identified woman) disappeared into the crowd. To anyone that wasn't expecting him he would look like a teacher or a chaperone.

Jenny followed Richard's gaze and began to walk towards the apparently shady figure.

Rich put a hand on her shoulder and shook his head when she shot a glare at him.

"What, do you think that that's the real Scarecrow or something?" she venomously asked him.

"It's probable. This _is_ a public school after all." he answered.

Jenny rolled her eyes and said, "Watch." before shrugging his hand away and walking over to the scarecrow, who was chatting with a teacher, Rich followed her.

"Excuse me, sir?" she said, sounding a million times more sincere, the burlap-donning person turned around and lifted their mask, Richard was taken aback, either Crane had gone out of his way to secure his identity, or Rich had been mistaken, the face was thin and long, obviously belonging to a woman. She laughed, "I guess my disguise is better than I thought!" she exclaimed.

"Oh, sorry Ma'am. My friend here thought you were someone else." Jenny apologized. Rich smiled meekly.

"Yes, I was stopped by a policeman on my way here, they thought I was that crazy doctor fellow." she said cheerily.

"I did too, that's a really spiffy costume. I'm Richard, by the way," Rich said, "And this is Jenny."

"It's nice to meet you," the woman said, then introduced herself, "I'm Maria. One of my students asked me to chaperone, I'm a violin teacher, you see. I hope your having fun Richard and Jenny."

Rich excused himself and Jenny followed suit, the pair returned to their spot with Swampy.

"So what is your-" Richard began, another scarecrow had entered, this one was more obviously not _the_ Scarecrow, for they were all too short.

"Erm, sorry about that. Rich is expecting a person dressed up as a scarecrow," Jenny said to Swampy, "Oh, I don't think I've introduced you yet. Rich, this is Gary. Gary, Rich."

Both boys mentally smacked themselves for not giving their own introductions earlier.

Out of the corner of his eye Richard saw a man dressed up as what must have been intended to be The Matrix meets Dawn Of The Dead. The man was making his way to the stage, Rich gasped. This _had_ to be him.

The band quieted down and the principle stepped into the spotlight, beginning his speech, which Richard heard none of, whoever was behind the mask had _something_ suspicious planned, he was now on the stage. Rich began to creep towards the door.

The man was right behind the principle now, opening his briefcase and pulling out the mask, whoever noticed this probably expected it to be some joke, as no one seemed to realize how genuine the Scarecrow looked.

Suddenly, and quite unexpectedly for the poor principle, Crane yelled something about either fear or not being able to escape or both and fear gassed him, keeping his hands up so that the toxin would spread through the room, it didn't help that there were lots of fans all over the place.

Rich did not wait for the screams to start, and bolted out the door, through the hall, out of the school and finally onto his bike, which he hurriedly peddled away on.

**V**

The awkward event of walking into a room full of people that you were _hardly _friends with is generally twice as bad _at least_ if you are doing it for the first time in your life, and there is a slight chance that someone is already drunk and will make fun of you.

Alyson had anticipated some form of attention when she arrived, what she received was a complaint from her boss, "You're late, I need you to take notes on who wins which games." he half whined while shoving a clipboard into her arms, and nothing else.

She sighed and rolled her eyes. This would be _so much_ fun.

**V**

The evening was shaping up to be about as climatic as your average Monday afternoon. Alyson took notes until about ten, then they held a (for lack of better words) awards ceremony, which she also took notes on.

By now it seemed that everyone in the building _except_ her was drunk. She, not caring for attempting to have a conversation with anyone, began to make her way towards the door.

A man shoved past her on her way out, "Who are you?" she asked, not recognizing the masked figured.

"I'm from Corporate." they replied. She gave them a 'Yeah... sure.' look and said, "Well I've never seen you before."

'_What if this is a rogue like the Joker or the Riddler?' _she thought, then reprimanded herself, this was a pencil company, there was pretty much no reason for someone of any importance whatsoever to appear here.

The guy who was apparently from Corporate walked into the room. Her slightly sober boss greeted him and offered him drink. Alyson started opening the door again when she realized something, Mr. Corporate's mask was _very_ familiar. It couldn't be, say the Scarecrow's mask, his looked like a potato sack on drugs, _but_... he could have gotten a new one...

She chided herself, it was just too random... _'Maybe he's just looking for test subjects at random though...'_ Alyson pushed away thoughts of the man and forced herself to take a drink of whatever that brown-ish, alcoholic liquid was.

The lights went out. If the stranger _was_ the Scarecrow than that probably was no thanks to his henchmen. She grumbled a curse, her boss would probably make _her_ go down to the basement to get the power back on.

I hissing sound filled the air and she gasped, her lungs filling with what tasted somewhat redolent of smoke. Then the screaming started.

Alyson Chair swore loudly. How _dare_ he do this? Now bad memories, bad memories that had been forcefully suppressed for nearly ten years were trying to resurface. The lights went on and she closed her eyes.

'_Get a grip, get a grip, think of happy things that aren't scary... This reminds me of that one movie, what was it's name?'_ her mind disobediently wandered off to hardly-frightening horror movies and The Wizard Of Oz. When what she assumed were five minutes had passed, Alyson opened her eyes, a semi-lit office room full of screaming people that looked like twenty-dollar value zombies was the sight that greeted the oddly not-scared receptionist. Alyson remembered something about needing to get an antidote for fear gas or else the infected would lose their minds permanently that she had read somewhere. She pulled her cell-phone out of her purse and started to dial, breathing in deeply, _bad idea._ The phone turned into a snake in her hands and she crabbily shoved it back into her purse. "Fine, I'll have to drive." she complained to herself.

She slammed the wavering door open, grabbing the Scarecrow's attention, he said something to Alyson that she didn't quite catch, as she was too engaged in fleeing the scene without falling over thanks to the gorgeous stilettos that she had worn.

Alyson stepped sideways on her left foot and gave up on the heels, shoving them into her purse with the snake-phone and slipping on the slick tile in her pantihose on her way to the elevator. Crane had abdicated his boring other test subjects in favor of the new, exciting one that had an apparent immunity. Unfortunately for him, though, the otherwise plain woman had gotten to the elevator and closed the door on him before he reached it, forcing him to take the stairs. Which he tripped and fell down most of the way.

Alyson was horrified to find herself not on the first floor when the elevator stopped, but in the loading garage. A few of the guys that worked there were playing some Halloween card game.

"Hey!" She called to them, they looked up.

"Hi Alyson, what're you doing down here?" one of them asked.

"You gotta get outta here guys," she warned, walking towards them "th-" she was interrupted by a thumping noise coming from the stairwell. The door slammed open under the weight of the mad former psychiatrist. He ignored the staring workers and stood up, walked over to them and sprayed them all with fear gas. Alyson fled again as they started freaking out.

She ran out of the big garage door, into the parking garage, intent on reaching her little silver sedan before before the psychotic pursuer reached _her_.

The lucky event of reaching the car first was ruined when Crane stepped in front of it, cornering her against the wall. She tried to scare him off by letting the car almost hit him, but the villain didn't budge. Alyson picked through her purse for some kind of heavy of sharp thing to throw at him, she settled for one of her shoes and chucked it at him, missing by a shockingly bad three feet. Alyson yelled a profanity, something, she noted, she had been doing increasingly tonight.

The woman sighed and leaned into her steering wheel, well at least she'd gotten her wish.

This would be a _long_ night. Alyson jammed a CD into the radio and turned the volume up to full blast.

**V**

Edward Nygma had never considered himself to be a major threat to the well-being of Gotham City. At least, in comparison to, say, the Joker (who happened to be across town right now, probably holding some young vigilante-to-be hostage until Batman saved them and thwarted the killer clown's plans.

Unfortunately for pretty much everyone involved, the Bat was currently thwarting Edward's plans instead. He had the Riddler up against a wall, and was chaining him up in an attempt to keep the green-wearing rogue occupied until the police arrived.

"I really hate to break your bubble, Batman, but you've got the wrong guy." Batman gave him a nice 'if looks could kill...' glare, "What I mean is that I'm not going to kill anyone." Eddie continued, "But for some reason, I don't think that the Joker is going to be as... _nice_."

Batman performed an 'I will cause some major harm to you if you don't answer me' action and growled, "Where is he?"

"Across town!" Eddie yelped. Batman let him down and was gone in a blink.

**V**

Rich was going to die.

He knew where he'd gone wrong, it had been a _very_ dumb idea to take a right turn and start climbing up the elevator shaft that led directly to where the Joker was located, it had been probably laughably easy for the clown to capture him, a little skinny, zit-faced teenager just climbing up the elevator shaft, Harley'd taken the stairs and had pulled him up (and almost strangled him too) out of the shaft the moment that he was in grabbing range. It marveled him how strong the thin, woman was.

Richard probably could have run home after distracting Harley in order to free the hostages. He could have left the scene after she'd started chasing him around with that dreadful sledge-hammer. He might have even been able to escape her by simply _not_ turning, but she _had_ been gaining on him, and it had seemed like a smart idea at the time.

Now he was in a wide room near the top of an old apartment, tied up to a chair and 'Waiting for the fireworks' with the lovely company of Harley, a couple of unfortunate henchmen's corpses and her dearest love.

There was a rope thing hanging off of a beam, a means of escape for the clowns.

The Joker hadn't said much to Rich, who was now known, no thanks to a bird clock on a nearby wall in a recent run-in with the Riddler and his parent's names mushed together, as '_Robin_'. The boy was silent, thanks to a bandana shoved in his mouth and tied behind his head, and a lack of things to say.

"Is it time to go yet?" Harley asked.

The Joker looked at a nearby clock and nodded, a wicked smile spreading across his face. "Sorry we couldn't get to know each other better, but Harley and I've gotta split, at least you're getting a front row seat!"

Rich prayed that his relief of not having his face carved did not show up on his face. It apparently did not, as Harley slid down the rope and the Joker cut off his ropes, then followed suit.

Richard ran towards the rope but it disappeared before he reached it. A sense of hopelessness filled him. _'Just make it quick.'_ he prayed. The sense of acceptance that was supposed to overcome dying people did not feel like overcoming Richard though.

A low rumble then a giant roar filled his ears, and the boy ran towards the huge opening in the wall and leaped out, not bothering to look down, if he was going to die, he was going to make sure that it wasn't that _murderer's_ fault.

Rich yelled (_b_oys do not _scream_) as he fell, closing his eyes as he descended. Instead of whatever it was he was supposed to feel he was struck by an almost painful whiplash and opened his eyes, he was dangling by one of his belt loops about two feet above the ground. The fall seemed ten times shorter than it had to have been. Without his consent he began to slowly get closer to the ground. He fell limply onto the concrete as laughter came into his hearing range. Batman was probably here, and that was why Rich was still alive. The suddenly exhausted teenager lifted his head, a perfect picture of Batman catching his arch-nemesis was in his direct line of vision.

**V**

Alyson Chair felt pretty good about herself. Sure, Crane would probably get out of Arkham in a month and come after her right away. Sure, her boss was now mentally ill (he had been the first one sprayed). But she felt all warm and fuzzy inside that she was still very alive and (relatively) sane. The woman had called the police, realizing that the fear gas just wore off on her, which puzzled everyone, but no one questioned her about it that night, as she wearily thanked the authorities for coming and drove home as soon as they let her go.

**V**

Richard Greyson also felt pretty good, it was nice to be alive. He didn't care what Jenny thought, it had been _awesome_ to talk with Batman, who had strictly commanded him to not do anything like this again until he was at least legal, and to stay away even then (Rich didn't plan on it). His mother hadn't learned everything, the Dark Knight had agreed to tone it down a bit so as not to upset the woman. His schoolmates had been saved from a terrible fate of unnatural insanity, and they all thought he had just been with them.

Richard looked out of his window, it was about midnight now, and sighed. This had been one heck of a Halloween, and he couldn't _wait_ until next year.

**V**

**Thanks for reading, please review (and be nice, please) Don't worry, The original characters probably won't appear again. **

I promised my self earlier this month that I would write a Halloween fanfiction, and here it is. Sorry if there are any typos, tell me about them and I'll get to them when I have time.

**HAPPY HALLOWEEN EVERYONE**

**EDIT: Sorry that it's so bad.  
**


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